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What Are the Best First Steps For Becoming a Game Designer?
todd10k writes "I've recently decided to go back to college. I have a lot of experience with games, having played them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day. I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
Get out while you still can. I can't imagine a worse career path.
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What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study?
Hmmmm, I'm not sure this is going to be a fruitful discussion. It's not too clear to me what kind of game development interests you most. The truth is that games have been written in many languages and developers often scoff at any guideline to restrict them from writing a game in -- say Java -- when there are more efficient languages. Assuming you want to get into console games and/or PC games, I would suggest starting out with simple authoring tools and just tinker with them. Download GameKit and get it building on your development machine. Then set weekly goals for yourself to modify the Space Invaders game by changing graphics, sound, maybe even mechanics. Once you've done that and are bored, move on to another kit/sdk.
... they are both great languages for different tasks. It's more important that if you want to be a graphics engine guy you understand how major APIs are laid out to implement tiles and shaders and renderers ... Go here to start thinking aobut what aspect of the game interests you most.
You see, I doubt the importance is that you know how C++ or Lua works
What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept?
This is a topic I could drone on for hours about. Enjoy life, man. They'll take you with a 2 year tech degree or less if you're built for coding. But don't do that. Enjoy the college expereince, go to a four year liberal arts college. Explore math, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, music, etc. I took enough music theory to major in music but I didn't. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?
You should really concentrate on one of three types of games: web, console, PC. While the last two are related, the idea of catering to hardware probably has an effect on games. Is a PC developer going to care about Sony's Emotion engine while a console guy might live and breathe it. Honestly, fool around with Allegro, SDL and OpenGL if you're looking to do serious game coding.
You've got a long difficult road ahead if you're going down this path. You're going to have your heart broken by Blizzard and end up over worked and underpaid at EA. Game programming seems to find you, you can only prepare yourself for it. Read John Carmack's story in Masters of Doom or just wait for the upcoming movie about it.
I've also heard -- and I can't verify this -- that it helps to have a notebook full of sketches, stories, game mechanics, ideas you've had in relation to games. You keep this and bring it to an interview. You pass the technical aspects and then you let them know that you really want this and that you are also creative and not just technical.
Don't forget to have fun and good luck!
My work here is dung.
Game Programming? What in particular:
- UI / Tools
- Graphics, Physics
- Networking
- AI
- Mobile Gaming
etc
But in general if you want to go into Game Programming hit a CS degree and do a game development masters. All while learning C++ and trying to develop a nice portfolio of little games you've created yourself. Try and find a Masters program with hooks into the games industry because they will be your best bet to even get a foot in the door.
If it is Game Design they do an arts degree like English Lit and then do a Masters in Game Design. Same deal with the shoe in the door thing, find the college with the best links not the best course.
C. A taste for ramen.
D. A willingness to update your resume every six months.
E. The number of your State Attorney General's Labor Enforcement Division, to file a complaint when they suddenly decide to stop paying you and ask you to work for free until they close the next round of funding, which is always just a week or two away.
If your approach to a new career is to find out the bare minimum you need to start... odds are you're not going to excel.
There's not a lot of stories from successful game developers that start with 'When I got in at 8am' and end with 'Then I left at 5pm.'
If you think you've got 'it', do what the guy who did Braid did -- make it. Don't wait for someone to give you a stamp of approval. Sing it loud.
Otherwise, stick with your day job.
Game development is HARD. It's definitely in the "deep-end" of computer programming. You better know some serious math, too.
What I'm saying is, most of the game developers who have jobs doing it have been doing it "for fun" since they were kids. It takes YEARS of work/experimentation/dedication to develop the skills to write a modern game.
If you are planning just to learn some programming and get a job in the game industry, don't be surprised if you get are stuck in entry-level positions for a LONG time. You aren't going to be game programming, per se. You're going to be debugging the installer for the game, stuff like that.
Game DESIGNER?
Well, you could try to create some board games or your own pen & paper RPG. No programmers required for either of those.
Look around any indie game developer forum and you'll see tons of posts about games that sound great, but only a handful of posts about games that are working and finished. Many of these get through the initial design stages, but their creators stall out at some process after that. Sometimes the design is simply too complicated for a first project. Sometimes they get a few lines of code down, but never return. Sometimes they implement all the interesting parts, but get hung up on the final details necessary for making a release.
My first suggestion is to use Apple as a model and never talk about things you are planning. Only talk about things that are finished or very close to finishing. You may need some outside programming help at some point along the way, of course, but there's rarely a need to get too specific about your game when asking for help.
Second, finish something. It can be a simple as a pong clone. Doesn't matter if anybody ever downloads it, just finish it and release it. Just getting that far puts you above 90% of the indie "developers" out there.
Not a typewriter
Sorry if the paragraph breaks end up jumbled here; Slashdot is being weird for me.
Disclaimer: I am a professional game developer
Why are you asking how to be a game designer, and then turning around and asking about programming languages? Decide which job you want.
Truly, the best way to immediately become a designer is to start your own company. Outside of that, nobody will want to hire an unknown to design things, unless you somehow have an extremely impressive portfolio. No matter how many games you've played and how great that experience is, it is an entirely different beast than designing a game.
The best experience for designing, if you still want to continue down that path, is to read about it constantly, and actually do it, also constantly, and get lots of people to tell you how you're a bad designer, until they stop saying that. Get a subscription to Game Developer Magazine, read books on game design, and by all means design your own games. Start simple and write a complete design document for an existing game such as Pac-Man. Maybe even figure out how to make it better and incorporate that into your design. Join the nearest IGDA chapter and go to meetings. Form relationships with people in the industry and ask them to critique your design documents from a professional viewpoint.
Now, you asked about programming languages, which is totally not what a designer should be asking. But if you want to go that route and be a game programmer, then consider what platforms you want to target, and learn the languages appropriate for that. For the iPhone, learn Objective-C++. For consoles, C++ is generally the way to go. For websites, probably ActionScript in Flash, or you could try lua in WildPockets. And if you have aspirations of being a level scripter (much easier than arbitrary game programming), then you should learn to make a mod in a variety of engines using their native languages: lua, python, UnrealScript, QuakeC, etc.
For any route you want to take, the most important thing for you to learn is everything. By that, I mean study all kinds of topics that you might think are completely unrelated to game design: history, fashion, languages, art, avionics. After you've gotten yourself into the habit of learning with great breadth and depth, and hopefully applying your new varied knowledge to your ideas, the best way for you to get a job in the industry is to meet and hang out with people who are already in it. To that end, join your local IGDA chapter, as I mentioned two paragraphs ago.
1. learn all about games, start by playing every available game.
2. Whatever (I'm still not done with stage one)
As of Postgres v6.2, time travel is no longer supported.
Sorry to burst your bubble but game designer/game programmer is one of these professions that you can't just say "hey, I know what I wanna do in life, I want to be a X. Now I'll just go to college to become that!". You can't right out of the blue suddenly decide to go to college to become a successful game designer/programmer/pianist/geologist/astronomer/graphical artist, because to have a successful career in those things you need a passion, and if you had the passion for it then whatever you want to make into a career would be your hobby to begin with.
From what you told us you don't seem to have any such passion, it sounds more like you decided "hey that sounds kind of cool, I'll just put my mind to it and surely I'll succeed". It doesn't work that way, because half of your colleagues will be people who code 512 byte demos in ARM assembly in their spare time just for fun, and who've been doing that type of thing since a decade before you had the bright idea of considering making games. My advice would be, either follow whatever passion you REALLY have, or go for a job that doesn't take any.
You just got troll'd!
I'm sorry, but having been a programming lecturer at the ncca, i actually think it's the worst possible place to start. The industry uses C++; standardized API's (eg, openGL, D3D, openAL); middleware (physX, morpheme); and is largely based in 3D graphics (BSP trees, quad trees, quat blending, shaders etc etc).
I can't see any advantage in wasting time with a basic-like language, on hardware that has very little relation to current consoles (single threaded, no GPU of merit). It may be of some benefit to programming handheld consoles (ok, just the DS), however even that is not going to help in a few years time (the next generation of handhelds are likely to include fairly powerful GPU's - eg PSP).
There is a huge amount of information to learn and digest before you can expect to get a job in this industry, so spend time learning that (by writing games) and not on information that has little real world usage.
I'm a game developer, having worked at Elixir and Lionhead, and now running my own indie show --> http://www.positech.co.uk./ Parent poster is right, most people who now work as game designers started young and worked for years. i wrote my first code in 1981, aged 11, so that's about 28 years to get to where I am now (albeit with some major detours, you can do it much quicker).
Key points to be aware of are these:
1) The competition to be designer is harder than any other role, so the chances of getting work as a designer are way way lower than getting a job as an artist or coder or tester, so you need to be uber-good.
2) What most people consider to be game design is being 'lead designer' or even better 'concept designer'. These roles are even rarer. You need to run/own a studio or go solo to get this job.
3) 50% of the coders and artists at each game company also harbour design ambitions. They are also ahead of you in the queue.
Having said all this, you can do it, I certainly have. I've even designed games for Maxis (SimSocial) as well as my indie stuff. The key thing is, that I did it through the route of programming. I didn't have to persuade a coder to make my idea, I could code it myself, which is 90% of the battle. I have to employ an artist or three, but at the start, you can get away with coder art.
In short, if you are one of the game design wannabes who aims to never learn any code and is afraid of C++, you are very likely doomed, unless you get in through the route of game testing, and then work your balls off or show incredible ability. Even given that, you are looking at 5+ years minimum before you get to really design. Thats 5 years of checking that barbies new riding game doesn't crash with a French keyboard and other exciting tasks.
On the other hand if you are happy to learn some code, and willing to start out small, you can do everything yourself. With platforms such as wiiware, iphone, the web (flash and PC downloadable) there are many opportunities to get to be a game designer on a smaller scale.
Indie dev may not sound as exciting as working at epic, but today I spent my working day fine tuning the circumstances under which AI-controlled space cruisers retreat to engage auto-repair systems*. It beats working in a call center :D
Good Luck!
*that was for this -> http://www.gratuitousspacebattles.com/
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I ended up getting quite a few job offers after my Neverwinter Nights modules became successful. It was flattering, but the reality is that my current job as a developer in the healthcare industry is way too good. I've managed to keep it in a recession while the gaming industry has become far more cutthroat.
I still love making games, but purely as a hobby.
...is English.
I am serious. I make games for a living and the most useful tool overall is written communication with the rest of the team. Nobody can remember how every nuance of a game should work so being able to go to the internal wiki or wherever and re-read the explanation is hugely important.
Also, make games. Lots and lots of games. Board games, card games, dice games, any kind of simple game. Look at other games - start with very simple games - and think about them critically. Examine each part of the game and try to figure out why it is that way. If you can't deconstruct games like this you've no business being a game designer.
Graham